Insurgency discussion

With all the talk about the Tea Party, the Hutarees and militia groups, I'd thought it would be fun to speculate on how an actual Second American Revolution may proceed.

Today, on NPR a member of a New Jersey "self-defense" group was the guest and there were a few angry callers. Perhaps they were angry that their welfare check is threatened. Perhaps they are angry that someone dares to question the transfer of money from the productive to the non-productive. The feeling of futility when all the voting and demonstrating and threat of riot and arson will not be enough to keep the government check coming.

Another caller admits to the futility of resistance, citing that Cobra gunships and M-1 tanks will be employed to blow up the homes of any resistors, that the revolution will not last a day. That is assuming all the gloves are off and the military and police are authorized to commit atrocities and ignore civilian casualties. Otherwise, pacification of the resistance will involve endless cordon-and-search operations, night raids, checkpoints and patrols that will become increasingly unpopular in the red and blue states alike. As the guerrilla warfare maxim goes: the government loses by not winning and the guerrilla wins by not losing.

For an idea of how an actual militia resistance will pan out, look no further than the insurgents of Iraq and Afghanistan. Federal law enforcement and military forces will be faced with roadside bombs and snipers. The perpetrators will melt into a sympathetic population. There are approximately 300 million firearms in this country with vast areas of rural and urban concealment. If the federal government decides to keep a facade of legitimacy, then it will leave the media open. If federal government feels it can weather public outrage, it can establish full martial law and close down the media.

In order to fight a guerrilla war, the federal government will need to win the hearts and minds of the areas where the militia is operating. If the military is mandated by the federal government to enforce federal policies, it will make the counter-insurgency task much more difficult because of a cultural barrier. The federal government can deploy units from more politcally reliable states but risk alienation of the natives who are already wary of outsiders. Or the federal government can deploy units constituted from residents from the same operational area but that would risk cultural solidarity and even collaboration with the guerrillas.

Closing abortion clinics, prohibiting homosexual marriage, exemption from federal taxes, even re-segregation is on the table. We have thousands of soldiers and contractors and drones and MRAPs on the ground in Afghanistan but we are still in no position to change Pashtun culture. If field commanders, intelligence analysts and policy makers come to a consensus that some compromise has to be made to advance the counter-insurgency effort, the militias will have effectively achieved its cultural goals and legitimized itself among their sympathizers.

The industrial and agricultural businesses in the area desire only a stable environment to maintain operational continuity. They can spend billions to hire their own security and continue to pay their corporate taxes to the federal government (which may decide it needs to increase anyway to pay for the war). The shareholders and the board of directors of these companies may decide that the most cost effective security measure, the optimal decision is a political solution. There may be back channels opened between the insurgents and the military to work out temporary cease-fires, POW exchanges and such. The talks could be as simple as less attacks in return for lower taxes, perhaps not an end in itself, but an opening gesture to continue future dialogues.

It is even feasible that global capital may support the militias to diminish Washington's influence in world affairs and to gain leverage over bilateral trade. In such a scenario, the states with minerals and intact agricultural operations will experience a variation of "Dutch disease" where corporations that can bring in investment solidify their influence to become "resource barons." Global capital will have no qualms with letting the militias "restore traditional family values" as a condition of a stable security situation.

With inflation, secular values and non-local personnel, the military will have great difficulty convincing the local population that they are there to help. For every single guerrilla, there will be a thousand defectors-in-place, informants that feed intel to the militias. The final stage of an insurgency may not be the "Restoration of the Constitutional Republic" but a stalemate between the resource-rich states and Washington DC. The counterinsurgency effort will attempt at every opportunity to play one militia group against the other, declaring some militias "moderate" and others "extremist."

Capitulation to the "red" states by Washington DC will delegitimize federal authority in the eyes of their urban, coastal electorate of the "blue" states. Generals and cabinet members will be "retired" and a new administration will have to live side by side with the militias. The new regime will appoint more "native" commanders, perhaps those with culturally-aligned sympathies, or a neutral third-nation "proconsul" to arbitrate disputes and agreements between the military and the militias.

International pressure from the UN and governments will demand war crimes tribunals for militia members, but with the international business community's demand for raw materials and food exports, the military may simply sit by and watch as the militias expel or exterminate whomever they deem undesirable. Washington DC will offer the obligatory condemnation but they know that intervention is more costly than bearing the brunt of public outrage. Remember that the indignant critics of federal docility and impassiveness do not have the means to impose their will, because they do not believe in firearms ownership.

The cities, with populations of dependents suddenly cut off from payments will explode into rioting. The federal government will have to choose between saving the cities by re-taxing the red states or let the cities burn. In the modern age, cities produce paper assets with rural states produce physical assets and resources. Who do you think the federal government will favor if its back is to the wall? Cities of howling masses or the installations critical to military operational continuity?

Controlling the land that produces oil, coal and nuclear power will be more important than controlling a city that produces more lawsuits, convicts, addicts and welfare applications than the taxpayers can support. Cities that want to resume the trucks and train cars full of food and materials simply have to recognize the legitimacy of the resource barons and militia groups. When enough cities accept the de facto autonomy of militia-controlled areas, global finance will return with investment capital (which will not necessarily be denominated in dollars, by the way) and lobby Washington DC to "tone it down" otherwise, Uncle Sam will have to offer much much higher interest rates on its T-bills/IOUs/etc in order to borrow the Euros and Renmenbi to pay for his Social Securty/Defense/Medicare bill. Or Social Security/Medicare/Defense may even disappear if the IMF deems it necessary as part of an American "Structural Adjustment Program" or "Austerity Measure." Replaced by an egalitarian, proletarian, utopian FEMA-ville.

I have no illusion that a post-balkanized Washington will back down out of some renewed, born-again sense of Constitutional Republicanism. Washington DC will only back off after
1. it has tried and failed to pacify the resistance
2. it can absorb criticism and public outrage of the payee public
3. it abandons the need to save face in front of its voters, most of whom are non-producers
4. it deems reconciliation as the most cost-effective and optimal choice

Militia groups aren't anarchists but the hard part will be running an above-ground government if and when Washington DC capitulates. Militia groups will also come to understand the same reality that organized crime and drug cartels face; governments cannot be completely overthrown because nations are needed to recognize currency and property laws which is the basis of modern capital and wealth. Militia groups will quickly lose legitimacy if it cannot provide basic government functions as outlined in the Constitution. The resource barons and the militias will have to re-learn the hard lessons that bureaucracies of the last 500 years had to deal with.

If the revolutionary movement has a hard-line ideology like Christian fundamentalism AND adapts the modern techniques of insurgency like al Qaeda or the Taliban, they may succeed at driving back the Feds, but will not be able to administer their territory. The moment the non-fundamentalist citizens raise a stink about the failure of getting the power back on and other civil services, the militias may devolve into Jacobin terror, denouncing complainant-citizens as anti-revolutionary.

So now we come full circle back to the core of any counter-insurgency operation. Wherever the militia fails to provide certain services, the federal government's psy-ops/propaganda apparatus will say, "We told you so." to the citizens who sympathized with and supported the militias. The counter-insurgents will secretly sabotage whatever projects or public works the militias have built to reinforce their message that the militias are incompetent at administering a stable government.

In Afghanistan, hearts-and-minds gestures like donating a power generator or giving out cash is easy but leaves the population vulnerable to robbery and intimidation. This is why the coalition is building roads, schools and conducting medical visits because the Taliban cannot steal a road or building or vaccination. Militias cannot expect everyone in their state to live like snake-eating survivalists. A large portion of every state, blue or red, is on some form of public assistance. They will have the most to lose if the militias succeed and the most to gain if the federal government, who signs the checks, prevail.

The citizenry expect electricity, utilities and store-shelves full of fresh groceries. If the militia drives out the authorities, who will provide public safety? Sure, truck drivers, utility repairmen and pizza-delivery guys can arm themselves, but why would they want to do business in an area where there's no 911, no court to resolve disputes and no one to deliver the mail. Who's going to do those tasks? How are they going to be paid?